When people think of talking birds, they will usually have parrots spring to mind first. But would you believe that there are actually other types of birds that can also talk?
Within this article, we will take a look at crows and whether or not they can talk so please read on if this is something that might pique your interest.
Table of Contents
Talking Crows
You may be surprised to learn that crows can in fact talk! Much like parrots they can use their syrinx to mimic sounds and words that they hear and repeat them. They may not be able to understand what they can say and simply just mimic words that they have heard.
However, over time you may be able to train a crow to understand a few words and be able to ask for food or say good morning or good night to you.
This training is very long and difficult however and so it would take a very long time for a crow to be able to learn this kind of trick.
Why have I never seen a talking crow?
The answer to this is that, unlike a bird such as a parrot, crows aren’t often kept as pets or in close proximity to humans.
Most of the time you will see crows in the outdoors in their natural environment and they do not often interact with humans and so picking up words to mimic can prove difficult.
However, in captivity crows have been known to mimic words and in fact can do it very well, almost as good as a parrot can in some cases. Whether in a zoo or as a rescue animal, a crow would have the chance to learn to mimic human speech and talk for itself.
How could I train a crow to speak?
If you just so happened to have a crow as a pet, or you have one that might visit your garden every day, there may be a chance that you could train it to speak.
Starting simple and repeating small words very often will help the crow to learn to mimic them. You could give it rewards if it says a word particularly well and give it praise when it tries very hard.
It is also beneficial to start the training young as they will be more likely to retain information and therefore have a higher chance of being able to learn to talk.
Of course, the most important thing is to build trust with the crow and help them to have a good bond with you. Spending time close to them and looking after them will help build trust and allow them to talk more easily.
If the crow doesn’t trust you then you will have a hard time teaching it anything at all.
Final Thoughts
Surprisingly, crows can talk and mimic words just like parrots can. This may seem strange at first but when it comes down to it, a parrot talking is just as strange as a crow is!
We simply see fewer crows talking as they are not often taken as pets and so spend less time around humans as a result.
Hopefully, this article has been useful in giving you some new and interesting information on crows and the way they can mimic words.
